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Comments
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/political-pulse/os-florida-felon-voting-rights-on-ballot-20180123-story.html
Under the current system, voting rights are not restored automatically, and whether they will be restored at all is up to the state, through the actions of the governor's administration.
I'll let Ballotpedia explain what's going on here:
In short, this is a "Jim Crow" law, and part of Florida's sordid history with voting rights: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article95105602.html
The homophobic governor of Idaho, Butch Otter, was once married to Gay Otter.
(Gov. Clement Leroy "Butch" Otter (R) was married to Gay Simplot, daughter of an agribusiness magnate, from 1964-1992. And yes, he is anti-LGBT rights.)
Edit: I should take a moment to remind our dear readers that former Idaho U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R) is not gay.
(By the way, there must be an alternate world where it is used as a slogan.)
Rep. Bob Brady, a Democrat from Pennsylvania's 1st congressional district who's had a reputation as the local party boss in Philadelphia and who's under investigation for corruption by the FBI, and who once stole the Pope's water glass and drank from it, will not run for re-election.
I hope he was a jock at school, 'cause it would've been hell for him otherwise. Gay Rowdy.
ain't no rule
Anyhow, the school is actually one of the top-notch public schools in the county, or at least it was when I was a high schooler. They were the ones to beat when it came to math and science competitions, for example, frequently sweeping the awards.
As for the event itself...I'm bad at words, so I'll just let a song filled with a combination of shock, resignation, lament, and outrage, speak for me. Specifically, the first ending theme of Cross Ange. WARNING: probably NSFW imagery.
There is very much a difference between culture and like, the political will to make a difference and therefore also make culture. I think America's gun laws are insane, and I think they should figure that stuff out, but I don't think a fringe TV streaming thing in Our Future Overlord Jeff Bezos' empire matters to this end.
It's very much in with what the twitter-world seems to be into. Ban everything I dislike even slightly or that doesn't conform, and let us embrace this world of living inside a social media bubble that is mostly "look how cool I am" quirkiness about how much we're all better than each other.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/02/richard-ojeda-west-virginia-blue-army-one-217217
Meanwhile, DT continuously being wrong about things means the news media actually has to teach me new things about the world. I did not know South Korea was such a big steel exporter to the US, or Canada, really.
the X in "the U.S. has gone X days without a school shooting" has been reset to 0.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I know these are probably things that genuinely helps but it doesn't stop them from sounding like a bag of grab-n-go 90s stereotypes.
I know you have to report everything accurately as a journalist or whatever but "tattoo problems"?
...
This article actually reminds me of something I read a few weeks ago about how the Myth of Quaint Americana gets Europeans to visit America in droves.
Also I've seeing too many discussions from confused yanks about what "hispanic" means. It should be straightforwardly simple to understand, but eh.
The US government is looking to pass a bill to arm retired police officers and veterans and have them work in schools literally a week after a veteran shot three nurses at the center he was living in.
Also Betsy DeVos is as... whatever as expected.
TL;DR the district map will be redrawn and the candidates will now live and likely run in different districts.
As for the status of the current result:
Conor Lamb’s (D) total lead is +677 right now.
The following votes are still outstanding:
* Greene County absentees: about 200 votes. Will probably net Rick Saccone (R) maybe 50 to 100 votes.
* unreturned military ballots: WPXI says there’s about two dozen, no geography specified, while another mention says there are only 14 unreturned military ballots in Washington County, and they have until March 20 to arrive. Washington County is one of four counties with portions in the district; the other three are Allegheny (about twice as big as Washington County), Westmoreland (somewhere between the two), and Greene (about a tenth as big).
* other unreturned absentee ballots: not sure if these will still be accepted and counted at this point, and if so, not sure until what date. also not sure how many there are, but they are probably very few, like less than 100 per county, based on what I remember of estimated absentee ballot totals compared to absentee ballot results.
* provisional ballots: not sure if these exist, nor what the deadline is if they do
Also the following potential conditions are outstanding:
* possible tabulation errors
* possible recount request from the Saccone campaign
All in all, Conor Lamb (D) is the most likely winner.
FYI, Donald Trump (R) defeated Hillary Clinton (D) here by about 58% to 39%, in November 2016.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/one-night-with-stormy-daniels-the-hero-america-needs-w517692
Somehow genuinely relatedly Hope Hicks was once the model for The It Girl series first book, which was also about nightmarish backstabbing people but was set in New York.
Hello again, Etowah County!I'm sorry, Etowah County.http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2018/03/etowah_sheriff_pocketed_over_7.html
(Etowah County was most recently in the national spotlight for being the home of Roy Moore, and also the location of Gadsden Mall, where he got banned from while working in the DA's office. Yes, that guy.)
I haven't been able to figure out whether "Abe Lincoln" is actually part of his name or just a snarky way of indicating his profession. It seems like it might actually be part of his name.
He faces Mitt Romney and 16 other Republican candidates in the primary election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/28/i-sold-trump-100000-worth-of-pianos-then-he-stiffed-me/?utm_term=.7ba88b820797
as a pianist: EXTRA fuck Trump.
TL;DR a short history of evangelicalism and its political significance.
Here's a choice bit:
TL;DR Gov. Scott Walker (R), who has so far refused to hold special elections in senate district 1 (the Door Peninsula, on the northeast side of the state) and assembly district 42 (just north of Madison, in the center of the state), has now been ordered by a judge to do so. The two seats became vacant when their prior incumbents resigned on December 29 of last year to join Walker's administration.
Basically, Walker and his fellow Republicans became spooked after Dems won a special election in the 10th senate district (western Wisconsin). This district, as well as the two currently vacant ones, were all won by Trump by similar margins (Clinton got around 40% in each, and Obama got 46% to 51%), so now Walker has been trying to prevent more special election Dem victories by simply not holding the elections themselves.
March 27
* Alabama House District 21: Huntsville-area seat. Republican incumbent passed away. Hazel Green High School history teacher Terry Jones (D) faces former Huntsville police chief Rex Reynolds (R).
April 3
* California Assembly Districts 39, 45, and 54: Three firmly blue districts around Los Angeles. In the first two, the Democratic incumbents resigned due to sexual harassment/misconduct allegations; in the last one, the Dem incumbent resigned for health reasons. All three will have jungle primaries of three to six Dems and one Repub; 50% to win outright, otherwise top two advance to runoff.
* Massachusetts Second Bristol House District: Located in Attleboro. Light blue. Democratic incumbent elected mayor of Attleboro. Retired teacher Jim Hawkins (D) faces Attleboro city councilor Julie Hall (R).
* Rhode Island Senate District 8: Located next door to the above district, in Pawtucket. Rather blue district. Democratic incumbent resigned due to personal problems with alcohol. Pawtucket city councilor Sandra Cano (D) faces local Republican Party chair Nathan Luciano (R) and independent Pamela Braman.
* Wisconsin Supreme Court: Statewide regular election for one of 7 seats on the Court. Currently at a 5-2 conservative majority, but one of the conservatives is retiring rather than standing for reelection to another ten-year term (i.e. until 2028). In this officially nonpartisan race, the de facto progressive candidate, Rebecca Dallet, is a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge, first elected there in 2008 then re-elected in 2014, and the de facto conservative candidate is a Sauk County Circuit Court Judge appointed by the infamous Scott Walker (R).
This last one's probably got the longest-lasting implications.
April 10
* Florida Senate District 31: Located in Palm Beach County -- the wealthier northern one of the three big southeast Florida counties. Probably rather blue district. Democratic incumbent resigned due to sexual misconduct. State representative Lori Berman (D) faces local Republican Party vice chair Tami Donnally (R).
* Iowa Senate District 25: small towns/rural areas between Ames and Waterloo, in central Iowa. Mildly red by Obama numbers (45%), quite red by Clinton numbers (34%). Republican incumbent resigned following the release of a video showing him kissing a lobbyist. Small business owner Tracy Freese (D) faces former state rep. Annette Sweeney (R).
The Iowa Senate currently has a Republican majority of 28/50 seats, with 1 vacancy as mentioned above, so it's the closest to changing party control of all the state lege chambers mentioned here.
(CA Assembly, MA House, and RI Senate have big Dem majorities; Alabama House and Florida House have big Republican majorities. CA Assembly currently has Dems in 52/80 seats, which is just under a veto-proof 2/3 supermajority, but I don't see reason to expect them to lose two or more of the three seats mentioned above, or heck, any of them, so they should go back up to 55. Also, governor Jerry Brown is a Dem.)
It'll have nothing to do with the lowkey interest rate rises that keep happening entirely to keep institutional investors happy; or those rising inflation numbers that blipped once already this year and were dismissed as a "stock market correction"; or literally all of the Obama-era post-2008 policies and watchdogs that have been undone or broken up, respectively.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/19/upshot/pennsylvania-new-house-districts-gerrymandering.html
So, in summary, the way congressional districts are drawn has always been a frequent bone of contention. The United States largely doesn't use multi-member districts, but simply has one representative per geographically-defined (and non-overlapping) district, for members of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the national Congress. "Gerrymandering" -- the practice of drawing district lines to advantage one party over the other -- has been a thing since the early 1800s, if not earlier.
Pennsylvania's House map was drawn by Republicans, who controlled the levers of government at the state level following the 2010 census, and thus got to draw maps. However, recently, the Pennsylvania state supreme court ruled that the map was an unconstitutional gerrymander, according to the Pennsylvania state constitution. So, as a result, a new map was drawn up.
The article I linked compares each new congressional district to its rough predecessor, giving relatively detailed maps indicating what areas each set of district lines encompasses, district by district.
The new map will be used in the upcoming November 2018 elections, for the congressional term beginning January 2019. (There will also be at least two special elections for the last few months of the present term, using the old map, only because there have been two resignations recently. We actually already had a special election in another Pennsylvania congressional district earlier this year, using the old map as well.)
(By the way, let me know if you want to see me report more about special elections. They are scattered and can take a while to type up, but that's where between-cycle electoral excitement takes place.)